General Aviation: let's know this sector better

Source: GAMA (www.gama.aero)

General Aviation includes all the aeronautical operations other than commercial and military ones.

GAMAis the International association that gathers the aeronautical industries which produce airplanes, halicopters, equipments and services for General Aviation.

Every year GAMA publishes an interesting report on the state and prospect developments of this sector, which presently counts as many as 362,000 aircraft in the whole world (from light two-seat training and sport airplanes and helicopters to intercontinental businessjets). Some 199,000 thereof are based in the United States of America, and over 103.000 in Europe, but their number is ramping up also in Asia, Middle East and South America.

The economic impact of General Aviation is evaluated in some 219 billion USD only in the USA, where aggregated data are available, and includes 1.1 million jobs and 23 million hours flown last year (two thirds of them for business) from and to some 5,000 national airports (commercial aviation uses only 10 percent of them).

EASA, the European Aviation Safety Agency recently started a program to foster the development of General Aviation in Europe, where the private aircraft fleet has access to some 4.200 airports. A study is in progress with the primary goal to better define the features of a sector of activity that is considered fundamental for the development of air transport. In fact, it is from General Aviation that the main part of world’s commercial aviation pilots are generated.

The GAMA 2014 report on the word’s General Aviation with prospects on 2015 is readable and downloadable by clicking on following link: GAMA Report 2014/2015.